PERHAPS
one of the things that charm us most, as we come back
each year to the green world out of the stress of our
city life, is the great courtesy of nature, if one may
call it so. For her laws, though inexorable, and even
ruthless at times, are none the less gentle. I doubt if
there is cruelty in nature. We must wait until man appears
and evil is born into the world, before we find anything
of malice or greed in creation.
It is truly a state of war, in
which all the wild things live, whether they dress in
leaf or skin, fur, feather, bark, or scale. The unceasing
struggle for self-preservation and the perpetuation of
kind is veiled but real. And [Page 165] great
nature, which looks to the casual eye so calm, so unstirring,
so saturated with content and repose and the essence of
peace, is actually in hourly ferment of strife. To our
housebred sentiment, it seems a pathetic thing that every
wild creature should die a violent death. But, after all,
what better fate could befall it than to render its life
up for the preservation of other life more complex, more
active, more intelligent than its own? It is only man
who kills wantonly. The beasts that live by killing kill
only as hunger bids.
I think we feel the influence
of such natural benignity in our pleasures of the open
air. One may say, without being misanthropic, that the
greatest joy in nature is the absence of man. For in our
retreat to the woods we escape what is basest in ourselves;
our fellow mortals are not thrust upon us so closely;
we have room and time to choose our companions; and we
forget for awhile the cruelty of fear and greed.
I know the theme is deeper than
I can go [Page 166]. The great dilemma
of humanity is not to be solved offhand. And there remains,
after all, our hand-to-hand strife for a living, in which
the weak go to the wall. I do think, however, that we
might learn a lesson from that great nature which seems
so impersonal, and sometimes so reckless of life. We might
learn the courtesy of tolerance.
Here is our city life, our modern
modus vivendi, mitigate it as we please, a veiled
yet ruthless encounter man to man, – a strife to
the death. You may cushion your pews and deaden your walls,
and replenish your table from the ends of the earth; you
may lull yourself with sermons and salve you conscience
by founding charlatan colleges and establishing impertinent
charities; but the fact remains that men and women are
being worked to death in order that you and I may have
our luxuries.
“Well, what then? This is
no more than happens in a state of nature,” you
say. Yes, it is more. For in nature one is content with
[Page 167] enough; in civilization one
is never content. One of the chief characteristics that
we seem to have brought with us from an earlier stage
of existence is the baleful heritage of fear. Indeed we
seem to have cherished and developed it past all need.
It is fear that is at the root of all cruelty and greed,
the two evils that most disgrace the life of man. Under
primitive conditions, the dangers to life are greater,
and the chances of security less; so that it behooves
the savage to go warily. Fear is his vigilant warden.
But as he makes progress toward the amenities of a more
civilized existence, surely, one might suppose, fear would
be the first trait he would lose. For the first great
boon of his advancement must be immunity from danger.
The first good that comes to him from combining in a recognized
structure of society, however crude, must be security
of life. He can have less and less need of fear as a delicate
instant monitor for self-preservation. Unfortunately,
this is not so. Instead of laying aside fear [Page
168], we have developed new desires, absurd and
unthought-of requirements, that can only be satisfied,
as they increase, by ever-increasing acquisitions of property
and stores of wealth wrung from the earth. Nor is this
enough; we are still not satisfied with what we can earn
by labour; we must plunder from our weaker fellows, outwitting
them in relentless guile; until in the midst of plenty
the struggle for a bare existence is as fierce as it ever
was among the tribes of our predecessors.
Very likely this vigorous process
of social and individual evolution is productive of some
good qualities; we are not likely to become lazy under
it; none the less it seems to common sense terribly wasteful,
as wasteful as the processes of nature. And if we are
not to devise means to better nature, if we are not to
use our intelligence for purposes more benign than those
of the pre-human and sub-human creation, I can form no
notion of the proper use of mind at all. You may tell
me that the inexorable law of nature has provided [Page
169] for progress by the simple means of preserving
the fittest to survive, and that in human society we merely
follow the same methods. But I say that the laws of nature
can offer the soul no criterion for conduct. I only exist
to temper the occurrences of nature, to deflect them to
my own needs, and to alter my own human nature continually
for the better. I do not know what the soul is, but I
know that it exists; and I know that its admonitions form
a more beautiful sanction for conduct than the primitive
code of evolution taken alone. But I do not believe that
in our finer moments we shall find any fault with nature,
though we shall find a taint in ourselves. I believe that
we must in a large measure reverse the law of selection
when we reach human society, but that at the same time
we must remain nearer to nature in many ways than we are
accustomed to do.
I do not see any greed in nature.
I do not find any creature fighting for more than it actually
needs at the moment. I do not see [Page 170] any
cruelty in nature, any wanton destruction, except among
those primitive voters, our arboreal ancestors, the apes.
But that is the taint of human ingenuity beginning to
appear. I find in the world of green unflinching responsibility,
abiding, perdurable patience, and a courtesy that is too
large, too sure, for the cruelty and greed of man [Page
171].